(1)Chrono Trigger vs (16)Secret of Mana 2004
__TOC__ Results Saturday, April 10th, 2004 Ulti's Analysis And thus, Chrono Trigger's bid to prove that it was deserving of the 1 seed in Division 16 begun. Division 16 was the second hardest division in this contest to call, simply because it seemed like it would be such a tossup between the three heavy hitters of the division. There were also lesser titles that seemed like they had a decent chance at causing some upsets within the division as well. And then there is the issue of many, many gamers thinking that the era this division represents is indicative of the golden age of gaming. Within it were difficult RPGs (an oxymoron nowadays), legendary titles that have stood the test of time, revolutionary games that are simply a standard for what gaming is supposed to be, and quite possibly the best console ever created in the SNES. Only taking 16 games to represent this era seemed like an insult, but that's simply the way the bracket was laid out. It all begins and ends with Nu, er.... Chrono Trigger. CT nabbed the 1 seed in the division, and quite fairly. Chrono Trigger has become one of the board mascots over the last two years, so it was only fitting that Chrono Trigger somehow manage to land the 1 seed within the division. But could this translate into success in the polls? Well, yes and no. Considering we know how the contest plays out, it's easy to say that Chrono Trigger performed as expected. But if you looked at the match against Secret of Mana, you might have been scratching your head for awhile. Chrono Trigger got off to a fast start, but lost a ton of steam when the time came for the afternoon vote. It lost so much steam that its percentage was actually going down against a 16 seed. Ouch. But Chrono Trigger managed to recover to win with nearly 80% of the vote. But even then, people were concerned for awhile, as this was not the 1 seed style beating indicative of a game that was supposedly a lock for the finals in the eyes of many bracketmakers. The odd thing is that Chrono Trigger would take on this pattern in every match it was involved with. The question was whether or not it would cost Chrono Trigger a match down the line. Beating a 16 seed in this manner is nice, but what of Chrono Trigger's well-being should it take on such a lax approach with the afternoon vote against a game that could actually beat it? Only time would tell. Speaking of which, I haven't yet mentioned that the starting time of the poll was changed prior to this contest. In the past, the poll would start at 1 AM EST. For this contest, it seems that CJayC has updated the poll starting time to 3 AM. It makes enough sense when one considers that 3 AM EST is Midnight Pacific, but I personally think it took a huge part of the fun out of the contest. Not everyone on the eastern half of the US has the pleasure of being able to stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning to see the ending of the poll, and even the western crowd may have had issues. Staying up until midnight every day is not all that easy to do, especially for the younger crowd of GameFAQs. This change also varied the trends within the contest. We used to simply have a night vote, morning vote, afternoon vote, and evening vote. But with the start time changed, we now had five different voting blocks going in every match. To be simple, this created hell in many a match, including causing multiple matches to have comeback victories. But if there was one game in this contest that simply owned the night vote no matter who it was up against, it was Chrono Trigger. And it had to prove it time and time again in this contest. External Links * Oracle Match Results • Previous Match • Next Match Category: 2004 Spring Contest Matches